


If I Don't Have You

by SweetDeath



Category: Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones, Howl no Ugoku Shiro | Howl's Moving Castle, Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Howl's Moving Castle, M/M, Other, POV Second Person, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, Romance, Song Inspired, reader - Freeform, reader's gender isn't mentioned, seriously I'm almost in tears that's my emotional state while writing this that's ur warning, this is a vent fic and boy did i vent, vent - Freeform, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 04:19:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12313638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetDeath/pseuds/SweetDeath
Summary: I have nothing.In which Howl is a coward.





	If I Don't Have You

**Author's Note:**

> written to and inspired by I Have Nothing by Whitney Houston. i'm a mess and this is a terrible vent fic. unbeta'd, as usual.

“You’re not leaving again, are you?” 

 

You try not to sound too needy but it’s hard when everyone’s always walking out of your life. Howl stands with one hand tugging his red cloak tighter around him, smiling gently down at you– with pity.

 

“No, love. Not yet.” Your shoulders droop with relief but still you can barely keep your stomach from turning over in nervousness. His fair blond hair floats around his face and he draws nearer, taking one of your hands and uncurling your fingers from your palms and pressing kisses to the grooves your nails left there. 

 

There’s never enough time with him. Howl is always running from someone or something and he always makes it out by the skin of his teeth. You want to tell him to stop running, be can’t run from himself, but you know he wouldn’t listen. He’s a coward and you love him for it.

 

He takes your hands in his and pressed them to his chest so that you can feel the steady beat of his heart. It soothes you just enough so that you can meet his eyes.

 

“Not quite yet, but there’s something I need to check up on,” his clear blue eyes stare into you with an intensity that’s too intimate for you to bear and you want to look away, you want to never feel the lightness in your chest that comes with being by his side, but you are pinned like an especially interesting butterfly to a board when it comes to him. You want to stretch your powdery wings and let the sun catch in your many colors but at the end of the day, it’s Howl that gets everything. “It won’t be long, at the most I’ll be back in the morning.”

 

He’s as selfish as you want to be.

 

Apparently he can see the despair in your eyes because he coos and wraps his arms around you, kissing your hair and holding you tightly. “Oh, no, no, no, sweetheart, don’t give me that look– it hurts me more than you know.” 

 

“You don’t have to leave.”

 

“Darling, please don’t.”

 

“You can stay here, with me,” you tug on the sleeves of his poet shirt pleadingly and try to will the tears out of your eyes, “You can stay here, or we can hide– we can hide out deep in the mountains! Or by the sea! Doesn’t that sound nice?” You hold him even closer, begging to the cosmos to let him stay, let him stay.

 

With tenderness enough to make you cry, he pulls you from him and brings his face to yours, kissing away your tears and brushing your hair away from your hot face. The doorway blurs into his face and you can see the wheel that dictates his location leering at you from behind him, answering you more directly than Howl ever would.

 

“I have to go.” He smiles again and it breaks your heart. He’s such a charmer, a ladies’ man, an all around knock-out and you hate him for having to share him with everyone else. “It won’t be long– didn’t I tell you it won’t be long?”

 

“You don’t have to,” you repeat, “You don’t have to do any of this. We can just run away! That’s what you always do, right? Take me with you this time!”

 

Howl is quiet, still smoothing your hair down, and Calcifer’s flames crack and pop in the silence between the two of you. Calcifer is probably used to this happening– not only between you and Howl, but the countless others that he’s stolen the hearts of. Calcifer pretends to sleep and mind his own business.

 

Howl says it in a small voice, “You know I can’t do that.” His chin comes to rest on your head and you want to enjoy his warmth but you are hurting too much for even that.

 

“Why? Why can’t you?”

 

Howl doesn’t answer but he does press one last kiss to the crown of your head before turning to the door and exiting, the chime of a bell unfittingly happy in this situation and cementing the weight on your shoulders with even more force. 

 

The silence kills you and you want to chase after him but you know that even if you did, he’d already be gone.

 

“Why don’t you take a seat?” Calcifer’s voice creaks out and you slowly drag yourself to the rocking chair that sits in front of him. It’s warm there and you could recall the many times you fell asleep talking to Calcifer, laughing and exchanging outrageous tales with him, trying to out-brag each other. 

 

Now, Calcifer’s stare was too much for you. You buried your tear-stained face in your arms, sobs and wails finally escaping your body, too small to hold them all in.

 

“There, there,” Calcifer muttered softly, “It doesn’t last that long. You’ll get over him in no time.” And when you didn’t stop your crying, “Hey, you could always give your heart to me, right?”

 

You wanted to laugh at his quip but all that came out was another broken sob. 

 

When you had finally calmed down, you tried to ground yourself with your surroundings. The chair you were sitting in was a redwood rocking chair, smooth with age and well-loved. Calcifer sat in front of you, above a bed of stone and logs burned within him. A clock chimed somewhere that seemed far away in Howl’s magical castle, or maybe several– it was hard to tell him this distance. The castle lurched and hissed gently, moving like the sea on a calm, clear night. Moving far, far away from the people that were after Howl.

 

“Hey, Calcifer?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Why is Howl such a coward? Why must he run?” You pick at a loose thread on your sleeve, patting the spots on your wrist wet from crying. 

 

The fire demon sighs heavily, flecks of red and gold rising from his mouth. “He has no heart. Howl doesn’t feel deeply and what he does feel comes from running from the world as soon as he gets his fill of excitement and cheap thrills.”

 

“I wish he wouldn’t.”

 

“I wish he wouldn’t, either.”

 

Sniffing, you dry your tears with the back of your hand one last time and steel yourself for Howl’s return. He said he would be back before tomorrow. You had to trust in him.

 

Calcifer picked up on your change in demeanor and recognized your desire to be strong, with or without Howl.

 

“It passes, you know,” he says in a hushed voice, “Feelings always pass and rot away. You humans don’t live very long, so it’s best to forget them as soon as you can, before you get attached.”

 

You laugh bitterly and Calcifer’s eyes widen comically at your strange response. You were supposed to agree with him! Or fight him! He’s never encountered someone as heartbroken as you to laugh in a situation like this.

 

“I’m afraid it’s far past that, my friend.”

 

“You don’t mean…”

 

You lean back in your seat and let the chair rock you gently, holding you in Howl’s place. “Who knows? Maybe I do.”

 

The fire sputters and Calcifer’s flames grow higher, brighter for a few seconds before his orange glow settles to a cooler temperature. “You can’t! Howl is a coward! If he finds out, he’ll run before you can say a word!”

 

This makes you close your eyes– in surrender? In acceptance? You’re not sure– and you hum before replying. “I can’t help it, the same way Howl can’t help running away.”

 

But Calcifer is relentless; maybe he picks up the concern that Howl lacks. “Howl might not be able to help it, but you can! You can run away before he can run away from you! You don’t have to love him!”

 

You wince at having your feelings bared so carelessly in Howl’s castle, even if he wasn’t there to hear it. The walls have ears– or at least, the fire does.

 

“I think,” you began slowly, “that Howl tries to fill the void where his heart should be with this. With fleeting glances and kisses in the dark. How desperately he wants to feel it burn as brightly inside him as it does for me. When it doesn’t– and when someone like me starts getting a little too close to that void for him to bear– his first instinct is to find another source of emotion. He just wants to  _ feel _ something again, Calcifer– is that so wrong?”

 

Calcifer doesn’t answer for a few long moments and you are content to rock in your chair slowly, letting exhaustion curl at the edges of your vision and pull you into a land far away, where you dream of moving castles and talking fire demons and steaming potions and a version of Howl that never leaves.

 

“If he knows, he’ll run.”

 

Your eyelids slide closed and your lips curl into a sad smile. “He already knows.”

  
  
  
  


What rouses you from your slumber isn’t the morning sun or Calcifer complaining about the supply of wood he lives off of going low. What rouses you is the slam of a door and the violent sound of a bell being ripped from the doorjamb, clattering shrilly on the floor. As you jerk awake, a blur of white and red and yellow passes you, floorboards creaking loudly under his frantic paces.

 

When you have the presence of mind to ask what’s wrong, Howl turns on you before you can open your mouth.

 

“I have to leave.”

 

“Wha–”

 

“I have to leave, she found me– the Witch of the Waste, she’s found me again, I need to leave, right now.”

 

Howl is suddenly in front of you and his clothes are torn and singed and he smells of smoke and iron. He looks more alive than you have ever seen him and urgency bubbles to the surface of his jewel-blue eyes, hands cupping your face desperately, starved.

 

“I’m so sorry, my love, I’m so,  _ so _ sorry.” He kisses you fiercely, teeth and tongue pressed against you and his hands are shaking and you think he’s crying but then you realize the wetness on your cheeks is coming from your own eyes, not his, of course, it wouldn’t be his.

 

“Darling, sweetheart, my precious flower, I have to leave.” He presses kisses all over your face. “I have to leave and you can’t come with me.”

 

You’re stuck in a haze, in an ocean of static and white-noise, and you hear this news with the cotton where your brain should lie. You want to scream and cry and beg him not to go, never to go, but he pulls you up and holds your waist tightly to him, as close to him as he possibly can, and steals all the love you have to offer before he disappears off the face of the earth for heaven knows how long. 

 

What you do know is that this is the last you will ever see of Howl.

 

“Don’t leave me alone, Howl!” is the first thing to break from the seam of your kissed-pink lips. The next are varying begs and pleads and curses for him doing this to you. “You can’t leave me like this!”

 

Howl shushes you and he’s still shaking, and a small part of you whispers evilly to you that he’s shaking because he doesn’t want to leave you behind. You know that’s not true.

 

“Howl Pendragon, Howl Jenkins, Howl– Howl! Do not do this to me, please, Howl, don’t do this–” but you are being led to the door anyway, Calcifer sadly bidding you farewell and wishing you love and happiness in your life – “Take me with you, Howl!  _ Howl _ !”

 

Howl opens the door that held his multicolored, magical wheel and when he’s not kissing you he has his face pressed into your neck, kissing you there and wherever he can reach of you, hands clutching yours or squeezing your waist and hips or urging you to kiss him deeper with a hand between your shoulder blades or on your neck or tangled mournfully in your hair.

 

Then you’re on the step outside his door, wind rushing by the two of you almost painfully exposed on his balcony, the gears and legs of his mechanical castle working double-time to escape the threat that will soon come to follow him. Your tears are drying before they can even fall, the wind is so strong, but Howl kisses them away anyway. 

 

“My dear, I will never forget you. I hope that you will remember me as I will remember you.” Then Howl leans in and kisses you one last time, slowly, pouring all the feeling he can muster in his existence without a heart into this last kiss. It’s so agonizingly lovely, romantic and sweet, enough to weaken your knees in any other situation. You kiss him back anyway, taking what you can from him while you can. You can understand why the Witch of the Waste chases after him so relentlessly. You would probably do the same, if you had the power to.

 

“Howl, I–” he looks at you expectantly for as long as he can until there’s no time for soft words and he leans over and his may rings brush against your skin as he smooths your hair down, fruitlessly as the wind raises it again in the same second, and his opulent bracelets sing in a tinny voice and you never want to forget that mundane sound.

 

“Goodbye, love.” And he steps backwards through the doorframe, trying to take in the your visage in as long as he can before he’ll never see it again, before it’ll fade from memory, before you’ll fade from existence.

 

“Howl, I love you!” you shout, and the door shuts but you can still hear the sound of the lock sliding into place over the wailing wind.

 

Howl has left you standing on the steps to the entrance of his castle and made it very clear that you aren’t meant to be a part of his life any longer. 

 

You feel an empty hole in your chest, aching and pulsing with each beat of your vile heart, and you wish you took Calcifer up on that offer of taking away your heart. At least you would be able to live without this pain. 

 

You descend the rusted steps of Horrible Howl’s living abode, trailing your fingers over every inch of peeling metal and every flower on every vine that crawls up the house. The castle lowers itself and slows down enough for you to step off that final perch, into a field of flowers and soft grass beneath an open sky, beside a lake so fresh and clear that it’s surface is as still and reveals the persistent life beneath it like crystal. 

 

The air that breaches your lungs in gasps is crisp and the house bids one last, sad goodbye to you, creaking miserably as it took large bounds away from you, much faster now that it does not have to care for your safety any longer.

 

You sit down and cry in a field of lavender and bluebells and pink roses, not bothering to stem your sobs or the paradox of your achingly empty and too-full broken heart. The perfumes they give off, the picturesque scenery, the romanticism of it all; all of it was most likely one last gift from Howl, the ethereal lover that he is.

 

There is one glaring difference between you and Howl that you can be glad for.

 

You may have to live with a bleeding heart for the rest of your days, but at least you don’t have to live as a coward.

**Author's Note:**

> please comment and let me know if you liked this, or if you want more like this!


End file.
